25 August 2022.
ISBN: 978-0-85730-499-5 (PB0)
Tough, outspoken and fearless, young congresswoman Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is driving a new conversation in Boston – about race, poverty and health care. Taking on the establishment and fighting for re-election.
Her opponent is an old guard politician with a long-established grip on the way things work. His way of operating is less than savoury and he is backed by a member of Boston’s criminal royalty.
Carolina is receiving hate mail and death threats. Her campaign headquarters is broken into, ransacked and trashed. Private eye Spenser is hired to keep her safe. Along with two close friends and allies, he sets about doing what he does best; driven by a personal code and a moral compass that no one can break.
I was first introduced to Spenser back in the mid-1980s, courtesy of a ground breaking TV series. Which sent me the following day to the crime thrillers of Robert B Parker, a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. I got hooked, and down the years I’ve read nearly all of his work.
He died in 2010. Ace Atkins, a best-selling author himself, took on stewardship of the Spenser series. Bye Bye Baby is his tenth and brings the total of Spenser novels to 50.
Parker’s writing was always up to the minute contemporary; lean, tough and boiled hard. His sentences flowed with wit, grace and assurance. He didn’t pull his punches and told it like it was. Atkins has taken up the cudgel, and he wields it expertly.
Those who Spenser is up against are brutal and extremely dangerous. But his advantage lies in that he is very good at what he does and he’s much brighter than the opposition. Marianne Whitlock a sociologist and friend, offers him her considered assessment… They all feel they are maligned in some way. As straight men in America they’re the victim and are standing up to reclaim what they believe has always been theirs. It’s antisemitic, racist and ultra-nationalistic.
As polling day draws nearer, the threats and attacks on Carolina’s people multiply. Spenser unearths the assassination plot at the heart of the opposition’s project. The FBI are already investigating a related crime and order Spenser to stay clear. He can’t do that if he is to protect the life of his client. In the end he deals out the solution and the justice, as only he can.
Bye Bye Baby is a great read. Atkins has
written a fast-moving thriller which racks up suspense and action, chapter by
chapter. It feels almost as if Robert B Parker is still with us.
------
Reviewer: Jeff Dowson
Ace Atkins is a former journalist who cut his teeth as a crime reporter in the newsroom of The Tampa Tribune. He published his first novel, Crossroad Blues, at 27 and became a full-time novelist at 30. He has written several stand alones, a series about Nick Travers and his Quinn Coulson series which he continues to write. He has published ten Spenser novels. In an interview in 2013 he explained that he couldn't write the Coulson and Spenser books at the same time - he writes the two series separately allowing half a year for each! He lives on a historic farm outside Oxford, Mississippi with his family.
Jeff
Dowson began his career working in the
theatre as an actor and a director. He moved into television as a writer/producer/director. Screen credits
include arts series, entertainment features, documentaries, drama series and TV
films. Turning crime novelist in 2014, he introduced Bristol private eye
Jack Shepherd in Closing the Distance.
The series developed with Changing the
Odds, Cloning the Hate and Bending the Rules. The Ed Grover series,
featuring an American GI in Bristol during the years following World War 2, opened
with One Fight At A Time. The second
book New Friends Old Enemies was published in May 2021. Jeff is a member
of BAFTA, Mystery People, and the Crime Writers Association.
No comments:
Post a Comment